Hanging Out
by SingerMe
Summary: Every once in a while, hanging out with Amanda isn't so bad.


**Hanging Out**

I don't own these characters. I just like to spend time with them. No other profit to be had.

(Set in Season one. Yeah, yeah, I know. But I REALLLLLLLY like Seasons one and two)

( ( ( ( ( L&A ) ) ) ) )

"Psssssssttttttt!"

Standing near her open kitchen window, washing dishes, Amanda heard something but she wasn't quite sure what.

"Pssssssstttttt! Amanda."

Shaking her head, Amanda, dried her hands and went to the door and opened it, stepping outside. "It's okay, Lee." She called. "Mother and the boys are at the park."

Instantly, Lee stepped out of the bushes and moved over to her. "How long will they be gone?"

"Well, 'hello and how are you' too." She said with more than a hint of sarcasm as she returned to the house and her dishes.

"Hi, Amanda. How are you?" Lee said automatically following her inside. "Now, how long will they be gone?"

"Why?" She asked, giving him a suspicious glance.

"Because I need to hang out here for a little while." He answered as though it was something he did every day. Reaching out, he took an apple from the fruit bowl and leaned against the counter lazily munching on the fruit, also like it was something he did every day.

"Why?" She asked again with an arched brow. She didn't even notice his familiarity with her or her home. After 6 months of Lee Stetson popping in and out of her back yard and her life, she was becoming used to it.

"I just told you why?" He frowned. "Because I need a…"

"No, Lee." Amanda shook her head. "Why do you need to hang out here? I mean don't you have a girlfriend or someone else who'll let you hang out with them? Maybe Randi baby?"

"Amanda, I'm not here to hang out with you." Lee thought he was clarifying things until he saw the scowl on her face. "I mean, not... just... with you." He quickly covered. "We're doing some surveillance on a house in the next block and I… uh… I got a little too close." Damn, he hated admitting that. "The owner of the house may have seen me, so I had to get out of there for a while. And since I'm in charge of the operation, I need to stay close, so I came here."

"What house?" Amanda was suddenly very interested. Spies? In her neighborhood?

"The gray two story house, next block over and two houses up." He answered without hesitation. Within a short period of time, Amanda had become almost like another agent and he trusted her to keep Agency secrets as he would any other agent. "We have information that the owner may be tied in with the KGB."

Amanda paused in her dish washing, searching her memory of the next block over and which house he was referring to. Then it dawned on her. "Oh. Lee. That man's not a Russian spy. He's a Russian dry cleaner. Mr. and Mrs. Koblenz immigrated here several years ago."

"Well, that's the information on his sheet." Lee shrugged. "But the intel we gathered shows he does more than laundry. We think he's gathering US secrets and passing it to the KGB in laundry they bring to him."

Amanda stopped again, her eyes widening. "Really? The KGB?"

"Yes, really. The KGB." Lee mimicked her tone as he finished the apple and threw the core away in the trash bin under the sink.

Amanda never thought to wonder how he knew the trash was there and she ignored his tone.

Lee stepped over to her cupboard, pulled down a glass, filled it milk from the fridge and reclaimed his spot against the counter. "Anyway," he resumed talking. "We intercepted a coded message yesterday that Mr. Koblenz was going to be receiving some very special visitors today and we just want to see exactly who they are and what they are there for."

Amanda rolled her eyes. "Oh, Lee, I know all about that. The visitor, they are expecting, is Mr. Koblenz' brother, Viktor. He just recently came here and this is the first time they've been able to see each other in 10 years. And in case you're wondering, Viktor is a baker. Or at least he was back in Russia."

Lee frowned over at her. "How do you know that?"

"Mrs. Koblenz is friends with Alma Mayweather who is Norma Landon's next door neighbor's best friend who is in the same bridge club as Mother's friend Debbie Fanning who lives just across the street."

Lee just stared at her for a moment as the connections sank in. "And I thought the Agency had spies." He finally shook his head.

"Listen, if you really want to know anything about someone who lives in a neighborhood like this, you should just ask the people who live there." Amanda shrugged. "You could spy on them for days and not get as much information as we could tell you after just hanging out with the neighbors."

Lee drained the rest of his glass and handed it to Amanda to wash. "Well, maybe." He agreed but you don't have access to the highly confidential reports we do or the contacts or…"

"No, we don't." Amanda grinned over at him. "We have contact with the people who actually live here." She washed the glass and sat in the other side of the sink, where Lee rinsed and dried it. Neither he nor Amanda thought anything about it.

"Honestly, Lee." She said as she drained the sink and began to wipe down the counter while Lee put the glass back up as well as other dishes she'd washed. "Around here we don't keep secrets, there's none to keep."

Lee started to reply but the phone began to ring, interrupting him. Before Amanda could get turned around, Lee reached over and picked up the receiver. "Stetson."

Amanda's grin disappeared. What if that had been her mother? Or the neighbor? Or anyone else who wasn't supposed to know about him?

"You sure?" Lee spoke into the phone. The expression on his face told her he wasn't exactly happy with the news he'd received. "Alright. Yeah, yeah. Look, do me a favor and radio the van and tell them to call off surveillance. Yeah, tell them, I'll meet them at the Agency in an hour."

When Lee hung up the phone, he looked over to see Amanda standing with one hand on her hip and a scowl on her face. "That could've been my mother, ya know. Or my neighbor or somebody else for me or my family."

"Or it could've been somebody for me." Lee smiled at her before the smile disappeared and he dropped his head sheepishly. "And as it turned out, it was. You were right about the Koblenz'. We just got confirmation of it. The intel we received was bogus."

Amanda's grin reappeared. "I told you so." She said smugly.

Lee's grin reappeared as well and he nodded. "Yeah, you did. Guess I should've listened to you."

"Um, um." She agreed as she met his eyes. For just a moment, the two regarded each other not as co-workers or acquaintances or even friends. For just a second, something else tugged at the both of them and they both felt it.

Lee reluctantly broke the connection, he was feeling so comfortable and yet uncomfortable with, and headed for the door. "Well, I guess, since we're calling off the surveillance, I should go."

He reached for the knob but he couldn't resist taking one more look at the soft brown eyes of a woman he was positive he had no interest in what so ever. But something about hanging out with her, even for that small space of time, had pleased him more than any swanky party and any girl from the steno pool ever could have and he couldn't understand why.

"Uh, is something wrong?" Amanda asked, a little uncomfortable with the way he was staring at her, not realizing she'd been doing the same to him and loving how good and right it had felt to have him there for that brief span of time.

"Uh… Oh! Oh, uh no." He shrugged self-consciously. "Nothing's wrong. I… uh… well, I.. I guess I'd better take off."

"Uh, huh." Amanda nodded. "Mother and the boys will probably be home before too long."

"Yeah. I should go." Lee answered but for some odd reason he just couldn't bring himself to turn that knob and walk out. Instead he released it and took a step closer to her.

"Yeah, I… I guess you should." Amanda answered as she took a step towards him. She knew he should go, but she didn't want him to.

"Amanda!" They suddenly heard Dotty's voice from the front door."We're home!"

Amanda and Lee both jerked like they'd been shot. "Okay, Mother!" Amanda looked towards the front for just a moment, but that moment was all it took for Lee to quickly slip out the back door and take off.

Amanda sighed as she looked at the door he'd just slipped through and then pasted on a smile for her mother as she came into the kitchen. "You all have fun at the park?" She asked.

Dotty shrugged. "The boys did. They saw some of their friends from school there so you know, they just hung out together."

"What about you?" Amanda asked curiously. "Didn't you enjoy the park?"

"Well," Dotty sighed, "it was okay. But you know, well…" She sighed deeper and suddenly Amanda DID know.

"Was, Mr. Murphy there?" She asked slyly. Mr. Murphy ran the local book store and Amanda knew, whether her mother admitted it or not, that she liked the man.

"Mr. Murphy?" Dotty tried to play it off. "Ah, well, uh, well, come to think of it he was. You know just kind of hanging out and well, we…"

"Just kind of hung out together?" Amanda supplied with a smirk.

"Well, yes." Dotty admitted. "Is there anything wrong with that? I mean after all there's nothing wrong with hanging out with a friend for a while, you know. I mean you hang out with Dean from time to time don't you?" Her tone was becoming a little defensive and Amanda nodded, seeking to soothe her mother's irritation at being caught out.

"Yes, Mother, we do. And you're right. There is nothing wrong with hanging out with a friend." As she said those words, her mind went to Lee and the short period of time that he'd spent hanging out with her that day. It had felt so natural and so right, as though he belonged there, by her side, doing the most basic of household chores.

In practical terms, she knew she shouldn't even go there. Lee was a super agent and a womanizer and SOOOOOOOO not her type, as she wasn't his. And yet it had felt normal and comfortable hanging out with him, doing dishes and talking.

"Nothing wrong at all with hanging out." She smiled.

Two blocks over, Lee located his car and quickly got in. His mission for the day had been to catch a KGB agent. But instead, he'd almost gotten caught snooping by a laundromat owner and then spent time hanging out at Amanda's. Smiling, as he put the key in the ignition and started up the Porsche, Lee realized he hadn't had too bad a day after all.

Hanging out at Amanda's place had actually been nice. He hadn't even minded the few dishes he'd helped her with. Okay, the one glass. But still, doing anything domestic like that was usually a lot more than he wanted to do. But not today. Today it hadn't been bad at all, hanging out in a normal household with a normal woman and doing normal things.

Of course, he didn't plan on making it a regular thing, but every once in a while, hanging out with Amanda wasn't so bad.

Nope, not bad at all. He smiled.

The End


End file.
